Category Archives: Uncategorized

Kirkpatrick and the Myth of Egypt’s “Liberals”

Send this to the New York Times

Nervana

 If you would like to read a perfect example of a monochromic simplification of the complex Egyptian political scene, take a look at David Kirkpatrick’s piece in the New York Times: Egyptian Liberals Embrace the Military, Brooking No Dissent.

 His opening paragraph begins with, “In the square where liberals and Islamists once chanted together for democracy, demonstrators now carry posters hailing as a national hero the general who ousted the country’s first elected president, Mohamed Morsi, of the Muslim Brotherhood.”

 Like many western analysts, Kirkpatrick has redefined the various shades of non-Islamism in Egypt as liberalism. It has become a lazy way to lump together anyone with the slightest unease about the Muslim Brotherhood’s failed policy within one broad, simple definition. In a rather absurd way it labels in one big condescending swoop both ex-regime supporters and army supporters as “liberals.”

 He continued by saying, “Liberal…

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Plans to test 5-year-olds is not the coalition’s worst policy – but it’s their stupidest

Spot on!

Pride's Purge

(not satire – it’s UK education today)

Have any government ministers ever actually spoken to a 4-year-old child?

Because formally testing children at that age has got to be the stupidest idea the coalition has come up with yet.

This is what a formal test of a 4-year-old is likely to look like:

EXAMINER: Hello, what’s your name?

4-YEAR-OLD: Tom.

EXAMINER: Hello, Tom. And what’s your surname?

4-YEAR-OLD: I like sausages. Do you think we’re going to have sausages for tea today?

EXAMINER: Erm, I don’t know. Your surname?

4-YEAR-OLD: Trump.

EXAMINER: Trump’s your surname?

4-YEAR-OLD: He he he …. (blowing raspberries and laughing hysterically) … that’s what a trump sounds like. 

EXAMINER: Right. OK. Well maybe we can forget the surname. Let’s have a look at these shapes and can you tell me which one is the square?

4-YEAR-OLD: (without moving) Yes.

EXAMINER: Can you show me by pointing?

4-YEAR-OLD:…

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Free school meals leave 21 children dead in India | News | DW.DE | 17.07.2013

Another 30 children are still being treated in the hospital in the state capital Patna, state education minister P K Shahi said, adding that an investigation into the incident was underway.

The children, aged between eight and 11, fell ill around midday on Tuesday soon after eating the free school lunch in the village of Masrakh, 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Patna.

The meal of lentils and rice was reportedly cooked in the school kitchen. Preliminary investigations suggest the meal may have contained traces of insecticide.

via Free school meals leave 21 children dead in India | News | DW.DE | 17.07.2013.

Someone, by mistake or on purpose, added an insecticide to the meal…

Youth Anti-Violence Summit

Grow Dat Youth Farm

Grow Dat recently hosted a Youth Anti-Violence Summit on the farm in response to the shooting on Mother’s Day which deeply touched our Grow Dat community.

It was a day of reflection, sharing, and an attempt to envision a world different than the one we inhabit today. Filmmaker John Richie screened a section of his film Shellshocked and answered questions. Youth wrote letters to someone in their lives that had been touched by gun violence, and then shared their letters with another crew member.

Crew members were invited to create two kinds of trees: an unhealthy tree that maps systems of violence in New Orleans and beyond;  and a healthy tree that maps systems of individual and community-wide success, peace and happiness. Youth were encouraged to identify the roots of both trees, brainstorm what sustains the roots and helps the trees grow (the trunk), and what sort of leaves or fruit…

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This Event Isn’t For You: Family Friendly Spaces

Nuestra Vida, Nuestra Voz

“I’ll count to 10 and you hide!”
“That’s not fair, I WAN TO COUNT!”
“I’ll count and you can count next time?”
“Ok!”
“1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10! Ready or not, here I come!”

The kids ran around the conference room looking for each other, oblivious to the fact that their mom’s and dad’s were in the other room getting information and building on their skills in order to raise healthier families and better futures.

However, it wasn’t all rainbow colored ponies. As I took a small break from the conference and made my way to the bathroom, I caught a conversation between two of the guards on the floor. Both were annoyed at the children. The screaming, laughing, jumping and overall awesomeness was too much for them. Complaints were exchanged about several things. Both agreed that the work environment was being disrupted because of…

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China and the Middle-Income Trap: Indiscriminate Tuna Fishing

Read carefully – Danny Quah is seldom wrong and nearly always ahead of the curve.

DannyQuah

Like a spectre, the Middle Income Trap stalks China and the rest of the world’s successful emerging economies. This Trap says that no matter how fast-growing initially, all emerging economies will slow.

(In January 2013, Google returned 400,000 references  to the term “Middle-Income Trap”; by July that number had risen to 1.3mn.)

The proposition that fast-growing economies will slow eventually is called “neoclassical convergence” — when capital-deepening has run its course and any further advance in prosperity can come only from technological progress, whether through indigenous innovation or through importing techniques from any economies still running on ahead.

But neoclassical convergence is an old idea. Moreover, its prediction is that slowdown occurs when emerging economies smoothly and gradually catch up with and achieve equality with the advanced ones. In contrast the newer hypothesis of the Middle Income Trap puts forwards two further claims: first, that the slowdown occur with a…

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Tripoli’s Best Cafe: Ahwak Ben Tafesh Threatened By Extremists

A Separate State of Mind | A Blog by Elie Fares

Ahwak Ben Tafesh Tripoli - 1

I remember when I first went to Ahwak ben Tafesh in late 2012. I was reluctant to visit. I figured the place was definitely over-hyped. Why would I want to visit the go-to place of Tripoli’s liberal crowd?

How wrong was I?

I remember being captivated by the restroom. It was filled with graffiti, the most surprising of which was a sentence scribbled at the top right corner saying: “your lack of scientific knowledge is not proof that god exists.” Someone later on scribbled out the word god. I guess blasphemy is somewhat haram even on bathroom tiles. But these exchanges are all kind of peaceful and refreshing.

Ahwak Ben Tafesh Tripoli Lebanon

I’m not a coffee person so I don’t visit Ahwak for the beverages which are, based on my modest experience, quite good. What they serve, however, and I find exquisite is their carrot cake. It’s homemade and all kinds of awesome. Simply…

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Krugman on the Ugly Truth

Seniors for a Democratic Society

Hunger Games, U.S.A.

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Something terrible has happened to the soul of the Republican Party. We’ve gone beyond bad economic doctrine. We’ve even gone beyond selfishness and special interests. At this point we’re talking about a state of mind that takes positive glee in inflicting further suffering on the already miserable.

The occasion for these observations is, as you may have guessed, the monstrous farm bill the House passed last week.

For decades, farm bills have had two major pieces. One piece offers subsidies to farmers; the other offers nutritional aid to Americans in distress, mainly in the form of food stamps (these days officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP).

Long ago, when subsidies helped many poor farmers, you could defend the whole package as a form of support for those in need. Over the years, however, the two pieces diverged. Farm subsidies became…

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